SOUTHWARK BRIDGE.
We are now at the southern extremity of London Bridge—one of the best of Rennie’s works, but a very uninteresting structure compared with that which preceded it. Still, it is impossible to pass over this granite causeway without seeing, at any hour of the day, such a spectacle of human life as penetrates both the heart and soul. All bridges are favourable to this kind of observation; for they contract and isolate the great stream of human beings, which for a brief period is incapable of any diversion either to the right or to the left, but is brought sharply and sternly face to face with him who would take note of his fellow-creatures. Moreover, the absence of houses or other buildings at the side of the footpaths brings every figure into relief against the vast, eternal sky, and suggests, in a subtle and almost terrible way, the fragility of the individual, as compared with the infinity above his head. Beneath is the deep, dark river; above are the inscrutable heavens; and between the two are these mites and motes of a vanishing existence, suspended for a time between elements which are stronger than themselves. On London Bridge one sees all the chief varieties of human character, passing on from morn to eve, and often far into the night, with that look of patient endurance, or of half-suppressed suffering, which comes out so strangely when large multitudes of men and women are brought together, without any community of interest, or knowledge of each other’s cares. The City man, the lawyer, the clerk, the rugged labourer, the railway servant, the desperately poor, who are evidently on the tramp, either from London to the country, or from the country to London; the lurking thief, the flashy swindler, the Jew with his bag, poor women with their heavy bundles, and heavier faces, and perhaps still heavier hearts; the street Arab on the look-out for stray halfpence, the girls who sell cigar-lights, the meagre seamstresses going to and fro with their work, and, at one season of the year the vast emigration of hop-pickers, making for the fields of Kent—all these are here, together with many other types of character that demand recognition from thoughtful minds. Under certain climatic conditions, the effect is almost phantasmal in its reduplication and variety, its familiar aspects and its mysterious depth of life.
CANNON STREET STATION.
The complete demolition of the old bridge in 1832 was a matter of necessity, since the decrepitude of the former had at length gone beyond all hope of further patching, and the growing traffic of London required a broader and more convenient way from the City to the Borough. But no more interesting structure was ever devoted to the labourer’s pickaxe. A bridge appears to have existed as early as 978; another, built of wood, in 1014, was partly burned in 1136; and this was succeeded, some years later, by the edifice which was destroyed within the memory of some still living. The design was given by Peter of Colechurch, chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch in the Poultry. The construction occupied thirty-three years, from 1176 to 1209, which, considering the breadth of river to be spanned, the massiveness of the work, and the primitive nature of engineering science at that time, does not seem excessive. Peter’s bridge was of stone, not of timber, and consisted of nineteen arches, a drawbridge for large vessels, a gate-house at each end, and a chapel in the centre, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury. According to an old tradition, the course of the river was diverted into a trench while the works were proceeding—a trench which, commencing about Battersea, ended at Redriffe. Traces of this vast ditch were remaining about Lambeth Marsh in the middle of the seventeenth century, when small lakes of water appeared here and there, with intervals of fenny ground between. The bridge was built on piles, and these masses of timber, driven into the bed of the stream, must have lasted until the destruction of the bridge itself. On the outside of the timber foundations other piles were fixed, which rose up to low-water-mark, and formed projections into the river, having somewhat the character of open boats or barges. The object of the external masses, which were called “starlings,” was to break the rush of water as it dashed towards the bridge itself; but the narrow arches and their timber defences constituted a peril in the navigation of the river, and were the occasion of several accidents to boatmen not thoroughly masters of their calling. The operation of “shooting the bridge” was an exceedingly awkward one, and many persons were afraid to undertake it. The water formed a little cascade in these menacing straits, and the strength and rapidity of the current would sweep away small boats, and leave their occupants little chance of their lives.
